Spring daffodils

Maybe you’ve noticed that it’s full-on daffodil season in New York right now.

Urban daffodils” by James Petts via Flickr

These happy yellow flowers are always a welcome reminder that Spring. Is. Here. But also that there is an incredible diversity of form in nature. A favorite place to see this live is the conservatory gardens in Central Park at 103rd Street and Fifth Avenue. But in case we can’t all get there, a little gallery of daffodil variety courtesy of Flickr!

Daffodils” by Martha Heinemann Bixby via Flickr

Daffodils” by Tejvan Pettinger via Flickr

Daffodils” by Jeff Hart via Flickr

Daffodil” by Steven Lilley via Flickr

Daffodil” by Samantha Forsberg via Flickr

Daffodils” by Mandy Jansen via Flickr

Any favorites among this group? If you’re out and see any you like, please share in the comments!

Spring snowdrops

Since it’s spring, I thought it would be nice to share some of what makes spring comforting to me–all the flowers! Especially the ones that tell us spring is on the way. The first flowers up are usually snowdrops.

Snowdrops” by Helen@Littlethorp via Flickr

This looks like a great place to stop for a rest, enjoy a picnic, or to soak up some sun before a long, meditative walk.

This Spring Break, I’m finding a little bit more time to (safely) get out and walk, explore how things are changing to really declare that spring is here.

Beats By Dr. Seuss

My aunt has been facing the challenging task of teaching 4 and 5 year olds over Zoom. She’s found that storytime works pretty well digitally, but sometimes she also likes to send YouTube videos to her class (and their parents) for their enjoyment.

One example, which I also found delightful as an adult, is the YouTube channel of Wes Tank, who raps Dr. Seuss books over beats by Dr. Dre. In addition to presenting beloved stories in a different, fun way, this can also be a time (for older children, teenagers, and adults) to think about meter, rhythm, and rhyme in poetry and prose.

Check out his rendition of The Lorax below:

Shout out to comforting food creators!

So far our comforting content is mostly animal, whether real, drawn, folded, or crafted otherwise.

 

owl open-face sandwich
photo by jrrosen

Anyone making or dreaming of any comforting food*? Especially but not limited to students in Hospitality Management! Share your pictures here–posts on this site are mostly pictures with a few sentences, so they probably won’t take too long to create. Save that time for more comfort food!

Or save that time for saying more! If you want to write a longer post, consider contributing to The Buzz, an OpenLab project for student voices. Find instructions, and read and comment on other students’ contributions.

*your comforting food does not need to resemble an animal!

Listen to Wikipedia (as Music)

One thing I find very comforting to listen to is this amazing program that converts Wikipedia activity into calm bell and string sounds. There are also visualizations.

It’s called Hatnote, and you can listen to it here! If you see visuals but don’t hear sound, look for a button to unmute the page. If you don’t see anything, try altering the beginning of the URL from https to just http.

The program sounds a bell tone whenever someone adds to a Wikipedia page and a string pluck whenever someone deletes something from a page. The pitch is determined by the size of the edit. These sounds are also visualized as slowly expanding circles, labeled with the name of the page that was edited. A low string swell indicates that a new user has joined the Wikipedia community!

I’ve loved this page ever since I first discovered it, but I find it particularly soothing now, to listen and know that even with everything going on in the world–and perhaps especially BECAUSE of everything going on in the world, hundreds of people are still contributing to public knowledge in thousands of tiny ways, all the time. Makes me feel like part of a global community.